Critical And Intersectional Approach To Feminist Geography

Confronting many challenges within the country of Brazil, Black women are taking the lead in grassroots movements against the government’s sexism, police brutality, and the wealthy elite and their gentrification programs. Keisha-Khan Perry exposes the inner working of these grassroots movements in the neighborhoods of Brazil in her book Black Women Against the Land Grab: The Fight for Racial Justice in Brazil. Global issues of gentrification are displayed in the battles of land grabbing and urban development plans specific to Brazil, highlighting the courageous women fighting the battle. Perry gives an example of the courage and determination to the women in Brazil in Chapter One of her book, showing a group of women standing in front of a

As stated in Sabrina Alimahomed’s article, “ Thinking Outside The Rainbow: Women of Color Redefining Queer Politics and Identity,” queer Latinas and Asian/Pacific Islander women experience marginality within the mainstream LGBT movement and their racial and ethnic communities. For queer Latinas and Asian/Pacific Islander women, race creates another layer of oppression, while white women use their race as a form of power and privilege. As stated in Audre Lorde’s article, “ Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference” women of color are regarded as others and not important when it comes to white feminism. White women ignore their privilege of being white, and instead of focusing on how women are oppressed based on differences of race, sexuality, class, and age, they just focus on being oppressed as women (Lorde 3) . They fail to understand or even want to comprehend the struggles of women of

Divisions within feminism through differences are demobilizing the necessary movement required to create change. In Audre Lorde’s piece, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House”, Lorde uses her experience at NYU’s Humanities conference to address how racism and homophobia are present in feminism. Furthermore, she believes not all women of a particular identity share the same experiences, so to change the patriarchy, feminists must work together and use their differences as a uniting factor rather than something to categorize and separate women. Through the reference to metaphor- the master house and the master’s tools- and the use of pathos, Lorde ensures to stress that differences between people need to be used as empowerment

Bibliography - Susan J. Ferguson. ' Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Social Class.' Dimensions of Inequality and Identity, SAGE Publications, 7/16/2015 - Jamila Osman. ' Navigating Intersectionality: How Race, Class, and Gender Overlap.'

She even makes an allusion to Virginia Woolfe’s A Room of One’s Own, in which she discredits the homogeneity with which the mainstream feminists try to tackle women’s issues by saying “A room of one’s own may be necessity for writing prose, but so are reams of paper, a typewriter, and plenty of time” (116). Not even established authors can escape the blunt reality with which Lorde writes. She blatantly declares that her female readers will never understand each other’s struggles: “Some problems we share as women, some we do not” (119). Some might ask then how can we work together if we do not share the same issues?

Intersectionality the analytical framework coined by Kimberle Crenshaw in 1989 was a key principle in the black feminism era in American history. As stated by Crenshaw, “Intersectionality is a lens through which you can see where power comes and collides, where it interlocks and intersects. It’s not simply that there’s a race problem here, a gender problem here, and a class or LBGTQ problem there. Many times that framework erases what happens to people who are subject to all of these things.” (Columbia Law School, “Kimberle Creshaw on Intersectionality”).

According to Dictonary.com Intersectionality is defined as “The interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage”. A term coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, intersectionality began as a critical response to the silence of White feminists on African American women’s oppression and the anti-racist movement for ignoring the needs of women in the name of racial unity. Crenshaw argues that anti-sexist politics and anti-racist approaches very rarely correspond to each other negatively implicating the understanding of black women as subjects for feminist intervention. Crenshaw’s most noted

Growing up, we were taught to look at the world in juxtaposition. This outlook forces us to order things such as race, sex, and socioeconomic status in categorical or hierarchical terms. In order to be on top, someone has to be beneath you, so those who are oppressors focus on maintaining their positions while still keeping the oppressed under their thumb. In the reading, Lorde speaking more on feminism but I feel like this is inclusive of men as well, but to me, this passage gives a sense of connectivity between various issues and how none of them can truly be addressed without acknowledging the others. This quote shows how oppression is largely universal while demonstrating how uncomfortable topics should not be avoided for fear of said discomfort.

1.The theory/concept of intersectionality is a theory centered around oppression, domination and discrimination through various mediums from the social and cultural elements of society. The theory can be applied in many ways toward women as well as their involvement in the criminal justice system. Some forms of discrimination that is more prevalent in perceiving the individual is using a woman's status, race, sexual orientation, ability and age, however there can be more added to this list. The wiki article said “The theory proposes that we should think of each element or trait of a person as inextricably linked with all of the other elements in order to fully understand one's identity.”

In September of 1979, Audre Lorde, poet, spoke about the impossibility of dismantling the patriarchy through oppressive means. The black feminist woman, Lorde, who has cancer at the point of this speech, uses ethos, pathos, and logos in order to guilt the audience into making a change of how black feminists are represented. Ethos is the building of the author's credibility in order to become more persuasive because people tend to believe people who they deem likable or respectable. “I agreed to take part in a New York University Institute for the Humanities conference a year ago, with the understanding that I would be commenting upon papers dealing with the role of difference within the lives of American women: difference of race, sexuality, class, and age. The absence of these considerations weakens any feminist discussion of the personal and the political.”

Intersectionality is described by Davis as “the interaction between gender, race, and other categories of difference in individual lives, social practices, institutional arrangements and cultural ideologies and the outcomes of these interactions in terms of power”(p. 456, Davis). In relation to inequality and intersectionality, Browne and Misra discuss the anti-categorical approach which explains how by placing people in categories of race, class, and gender, we are only perpetuating inequality by continuing to acknowledge our differences. These categories are inherently intersectional, with race being gendered and “classed”, and gender being “raced” and classed”. (p. 468, Browne, Misra) In conclusion, race, gender, and intersectionality play a major role in understanding inequality.

As with all theories, this feminist approach to Louise Halfe’s “Body Politics” does not come without its flaws. While it can be argued that this poem criticizes the performativity of feminine gender roles in a patriarchal society, this cannot be proven definitively without knowing the author’s original intentions. Furthermore, the poem does not give its readers enough information to conclude that the society the women live in is in fact a patriarchal society. This becomes evident, as there is no reference to any masculine figure – so any assumptions about the masculine-dominant culture are purely speculative. It is possible that Halfe wrote this poem in an attempt to challenge the gender binary, however one stands to question how successfully she is in doing so.

Kareen Harboyan English 1C Professor Supekar March 15, 2018 Word Count: Crenshaw’s Mapping the Margins: The Marginalization of Women of Color Analyzed Through Generalization and A Feminist Lens Crenshaw's Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color expands on the multifaceted struggles of women of color and the generalizations ingrained in society that limit women of color and keep them in a box. In this text, Crenshaw builds on the concept of intersectionality which proposes that social categorizations such as gender and race are intertwined and have great influence on one another.

Comparing Boys and Girls and Emma Watson’s speech for her HeForShe campaign Gender is not referred “to sex, but to this set of prescribed behavior,” as said by Marlene Goldman’s “Penning in the Bodies” (Goldman). There are many rules set upon an individual as to what is acceptable and what is not. The short story Boys and Girls by Alice Munro focuses on the implications the narrator had to endure on her journey to womanhood by reason of gender stereotypes. Emma Watson’s speech for the HeForShe campaign targets on abolishing gender inequality. Despite inequity, there is a myriad of comparable traits that are shared by humans which portrays our personality.

The ‘third sphere’…is a space of transit precisely because the women within those spaces define the spaces, as opposed to being defined by